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They don't want to understand the words, I can deal with those that don't know and are trying to learn. I deal with same thing helping people who want to get into IT or programming, soon as it requires study to disappear. If someone wants to learn I'll gladly share whatever I know it helps both of us in the long run.
Originally Posted by Stevebol
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09-28-2014 08:43 PM
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It sure is. But for me it ALWAYS flew in the face of what improv is and what it means to play your OWN style. So I decided from the outset to it differently. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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Nothing wrong with lick players. Nothing wrong with memorizing solos and phrases. It helps with the ears and the learning process. I always preferred learning music, getting my internal dialogue, listening, learning some solos, but not memorization. That always seemed to be too much work that, for me, was better time spent actually improvising developing my internal voice.
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Its funny, when I got into jazz a decade or so ago, I was very "anti copying." I guess because I had already spent so much time copying rock licks...I mean, there was a time I sounded exactly like Jerry Garcia. Well, on a bad night.
Over time, I saw the benefit in copping jazz licks. But I've never learned a whole solo (though I have transcribed whole solos...) I'm not sure I'm even capable of playing someone else's lines note for note anymore...at least not in the heat of the moment.
I have also learned to embrace all that Jerry that still bubbles to the surface when I play. I've had people tell me they hear "django-isms" in my playing...I smile and nod, because I know they came to me thru a certain middleman.
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I copy short series of notes, 4-5 if they're intriguing but the rest is all screwing around. I can't read for squat either.
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I remember reading an interview with Pat Metheny where he was asked about transcription, and he said that he thought transcription was great for beginners.
I used to think about this a lot, along with the famous Jimmy Raney line that went something like, "Who cares if you sound original? You can't even play?"
I think both of them are right, in a way. Some folks are super serious about absorbing tradition and assimilating. I think the Marsalis brothers are the models for this method. On guitar, I think Russell Malone is a great exemplar.
Other folks seem to just come up with something completely different. Pat Metheny is definitely influenced by Jim Hall a lot, but his compositions, a lot of aspects of his soloing, are just in another universe. I get the impression that he got away from copying Hall and Montgomery pretty early and started looking at music from the perspective of the underlying theoretical considerations to develop his own style.
I personally think that the highest level of genius is the ability to do what Pat did, but I have enormous respect for folks who can do what the Marsalis bros do, as well. I think I've realized that following in Metheny's footsteps is probably beyond my talent level (I just don't have ideas like that), so I've been working a lot over the last two or three years on trying to step back and absorb tradition, considering myself a "beginner" in Metheny's eyes.
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I try to learn licks just they don't stick so knowing that I end up studying them and trying to discover what about it I like. I then spend time playing variations and trying to do my own thing based on what discovered I liked. Some ways I wish I could memorizes some licks, but my workaround has its benefits and can be a lot of fun when creating variations. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Problem: Right hand difficulty executing descending arpeggios (string crossing)
A few approaches:
1. Play the same difficult passage over and over
2. Isolate the right hand and pick only open strings in the same configuration
3. Find additional repertoire and or etudes that address the same challenges
4. Improvise your own etude exclusively or largely built around the technical challenge
I have done all of these with varying levels of success
(success in this instance defined as making some degree of improvement).
Sometimes the body can figure out the needed adjustments through increased exposure,
other times an outside observer giving feedback (a teacher) is needed to break through faulty mechanics.
#4 is cool in that it addresses technique and improvisation practice at the same time.
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Right. You've always been clear about that. That's part of who you are and we all love you, Henry. But for the benefit of younger, impressionable players, it needs to be stressed that Charlie Parker, Charlie Christian, Joe Pass, Clark Terry, Wes Montgomery, George Benson, and many others learned solos by their heroes note for note and had lots of pet licks that they used over and over AND they all sounded great. Benson in particular is known for copping licks and he has a phrase for it: "If you don't want me to steal it, don't play it!" Originally Posted by henryrobinett
Joe Pass is interesting in this respect. His favorite guitar player was Django but he didn't learn Django's licks and solos. He learned Charlie Parker's licks and solos!
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Good advice. I found out what helped me was a) practicing making a series of upstrokes (-that can be isolated and a pattern can be played chromatically up and down the neck) and b) being more careful about how I held my pick so that it was getting closer to or further from the strings as I crossed them. (That was actually the bigger problem and I'm still refining my solution. It never showed up when I wasn't crossing several strings, which I used to rarely do, but now I know how, so I do it more. ;o) Originally Posted by bako
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I think the contemporary notion of "note-for-note" can mislead players about the role of licks and phrases in the tradition of jazz. Certainly it is possible----whether one wants to do it is another matter----to play along with a record and get a solo (or rhythm part, or even the phrasing of a head) down danged close to the original. But this isn't the same way that someone who uses many licks well is doing it. Perhaps the best example for guitar players is Charlie Christian. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Charlie used a few basic licks over and over but not always the same way. He knew how to compress or stretch out a lick to fill the space allotted for it.
Consider "Seven Come Eleven." The head is based on a simple guitar riff and Charlie's solo----which many have learned note for note---is built using several of his pet licks. It's no worse for being 'the way Charlie habitually played.' Further, he could use a lot of those same licks in the next solo but they wouldn't come out the same way.
Joe Weidlich broke down many of Charlie's lines into what he calls "tetrafragments" (the core elements of a lick) in a good book called "The Guitar Chord Shapes of Charlie Christian." To take a simple example. If you use an (folk) F chord shape to play a Bb at the sixth fret, you have a handy triad from holding the shape. Charlie worked this shape to death over I chords----it was his favorite way to play a I chord---but he could play it many different ways. As a triplet, as eighths, with a leading tone, without one, not to mention the placement within (or across) bar lines. So this wasn't a "lick" in the sense of "always the same from start to finish" but it is why Charlie's playing sounded so lick-y (-in a good sense; he NEVER sounded like he was noodling; everything fit, nothing was aimless.)
What many players learned from Charlie was not just this or that lick (-though some of the lines from his most famous solos were repeated by many others in the 'note-for-note' sense) but a way to play out of chord shapes that made it (relatively) easy to come up with good sounding lines on the fly which were fitting yet fresh.
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Well thank you. But I'm also here to say it doesn't NEED to be done that way. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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Pretty cool comments, some great personal insights.
Targuit... If I misunderstood... sorry. My point was simply my approach to fixing technical problems, which does somewhat bleed over to how one approaches learning in general.
Personally if I could I would practice all the time...just don't have the time. I compose and arrange most of the time, the one technical technique I did fix this year was my muting. I worked on the different tones and sounds produced. I've played a lot of latin jazz gigs this last year and needed better control for blending when reading lines with horn(s). So I fixed the technique... not the playing of one line.
I'm on a new CD coming out end of year... really cool music, great players. I'll post samples whenever I get something.
So the direction of thread is how to fix something broken, lines. So either the line is bad or our performance is.
I generally feel if I'm unable to articulate whatever line I'm playing... I'm doing something wrong.
I have my default fingerings, picking and articulations...What I've chosen for them to be. I can perform using others, but I make a choice to do so because of notation, sound, phrasing, feel etc... I don't just read through or copy a line and the technique is by chance.
Generally this happens in real time... This verbal explanation process takes basically no time, I've already made the choices, if need. I'm almost just plugging and playing with the technical skills I've developed. Like the muting technique I worked on... the different resulting sounds and possible articulations have become more options for performance from my technical skills.
I would believe this is what most players also do... with varying levels of awareness. I'm just from school of being aware of what and how I'm playing, (and the possibilities of what that might be). No right, wrong, good or bad, just personal choice. Which always leads me too... when trying to fix something, what's broken.
Broken might be lousy choice for the problem, the fault may not be from using something broken, maybe just wrong choice of what to use.
I always dig bako's approach to most topics... recognize what the topic is... make suggestions and adjust as needed.
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[QUOTE=Reg;463870 So the direction of thread is how to fix something broken, lines. So either the line is bad or our performance is.
I generally feel if I'm unable to articulate whatever line I'm playing... I'm doing something wrong.
Broken might be lousy choice for the problem, the fault may not be from using something broken, maybe just wrong choice of what to use.[/QUOTE]
I think you're right, Reg. I had some technical issues that needed addressing.
By 'broken' I meant lines that I had trouble with even though I had practiced them. One example from a head is the start of "Freight Trane." If I remember this right (-I'm away from a guitar just now) the 2nd, 3rd and 4th notes are on D string and the fifth note is on the A string immediately above the note on the D string and both are fretted with the pinky. That used to snag me. It's not because the line is hard in itself but because I hadn't made that move much, and probably never at that tempo, so it just didn't flow.(Plus, I worried it might snag, which only made it more likely!) But with a bit of work on the technique needed, it was fine. So it was a technique problem plain and simple. I just didn't think of that as a technique---I just thought I was screwing up!
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Great example Mark
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right on Henry .... Originally Posted by henryrobinett
I remember (my hero) Jim Mullen saying he'd not transcribed solos much (or poss at all)
and that it was really about .... getting the tunes in your head, onto the guitar ,and getting better and faster at this , till it is instantaneous ... real time
I'm on that journey ....
(a few hundred miles down the road tho)
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